Senate Appropriations Committee

“The Chairman and I were seeing little benefit from our participation in ITER” Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said at a hearing on the Department of Energy’s FY 2016 budget request. Feinstein’s remark was addressed to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, referring to misgivings she and Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) have had about the experimental fusion reactor during last year’s development of the FY 2015 appropriations bill.

Appropriators in the House and Senate are moving quickly in their review of the Obama Administration’s FY 2016 budget request. Simultaneous hearings are being held on many department and agency requests as the appropriators look toward the drafting of their funding legislation. They have a difficult job this year in finding money for the budget increases because overall funding is being kept essentially flat.

“I’m encouraged based upon where we were two or three years ago in terms of the big projects” said Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) as he wrapped up a hearing on the FY 2016 request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Alexander’s subcommittee and the counterpart House subcommittee held hearings on the overall NNSA request on March 4 and 11.

The Senate Interior, Environment Appropriations Subcommittee meet for two hours on March 4 to review the FY 2016 budget request for the Department of the Interior. A number of topics were discussed with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell; however there were no questions about the Administration’s request for the U.S. Geological Survey.

House and Senate appropriators have held important hearings in the last two weeks on the FY 2016 budget request for the Department of Commerce. Among the topics discussed at these hearings were the weather satellite program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and manufacturing programs of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Congress has completed the FY 2015 appropriations cycle with House and Senate approval of a $1.1 trillion bill providing funding through September 30, 2015 for all departments and agencies with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security that will be funded through early 2015.

Congress has completed the FY 2015 appropriations cycle with House and Senate approval of a $1.1 trillion bill providing funding through September 30, 2015 for all departments and agencies with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security that will be funded through early 2015.

Congress has completed the FY 2015 appropriations cycle with House and Senate approval of a $1.1 trillion bill providing funding through September 30, 2015 for all departments and agencies with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security that will be funded through early 2015.

Congress has completed the FY 2015 appropriations cycle with House and Senate approval of a $1.1 trillion bill providing funding through September 30, 2015 for all departments and agencies with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security that will be funded through early 2015.

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